Dr. Jonathan MacPherson interview

This is an interview with Dr . Jonathan MacPherson of Birmingham ,
Alabama . Dr . MacPherson was a professor at Miles College during
the 1960s and was very active in the Civil Rights Movement in
Birmingham as a Miles professor and also as a member of the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights led by Reverend Fred
Shuttlesworth. This interview concerns Dr. MacPherson ' s activities
in Civil Rights and his remembrances of the activities of Reverend
Fred Shuttlesworth. The interview was conducted by Andrew Manis at
Dr. MacPherson ' s office in Birmingham on August 4, 1989 .
ANDREW MANIS: Dr . MacPherson, perhaps we could begin with your
background , where you grew up, where you were educated, how you
moved into the ministry and that sort of information.
DR. MACPHERSON: Well , I was born in Fairfield here back in 1934.
I attended the local schools and finished high school suma cum laud
as valedictorian of my class in 1952. For the next three years I
attended Miles College and attained my bachelor ' s degree and after
that I went to Indiana and attended Purdue University for two years
and I came back to Miles College and served on the faculty in the
natural science department for several years and then I continued
advanced studies at Indiana University and finally obtained my
Ph. D. degree in chemistry from Howard Uni versi ty in Washington ,
D. C. During the times of the sixties I was primarily on the
faculty at Miles College.
ANDREW MANIS: Perhaps you can tell me about your religious
background . I noticed that you are a minister and you can tell me
how you became a minister.
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DR. MACPHERSON: Well, I always since early childhood have been in
church . It was a part of our upbringing. But as I grew older and
went into young adulthood I guess I always had a leaning toward the
ministry . But I didn 1 t finally experience and express my call into
the ministry until 1966. I was a student at Kansas State
University and I remember very vividly the things that were most
dramatic and caused me to accept the call . We went to the campus
early. I guess that time it was the latter part of August and the
other students had not arrived . We had some foreign students there
from Africa and other nations . And we were in the dormitory and
that night it seems I experienced a dream and in that dream I saw
a man with his back turned toward me knocking on the door. When he
turned I could see blood streaming down his face and I just said ,
"Jesus, Jesus ." That was the incident that let me know and led me
in the ministry. So I was licensed by the Pureville Baptist Church
in Manhattan , Kansas in 1966 . The following year I transferred
over to Washington , D. C. because there was a larger metropolitan
area . We had more Blacks there and I was associated with the
Canaan Baptist Church . They ordained me as the assistant pastor of
that church in 1967. That same year , 1967 , is when I obtained my
terminal degree. I returned to Birmingham and started pastoring
locally the St. John Baptist Church in March of 1968 . I am still
the pastor there .
ANDREW MANIS : When did you first begin to see some connection
between the gospel and the issue of Civil Rights?
DR. MACPHERSON : Well I suppose it was -- well early on paper and
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as a result of your reading I could see in the Bible Old Testament
prophets like Amos and those . But it was not until 1958 , I suppose
I was always conscious of race. Anyone coming up in the South and
in Birmingham, they couldn ' t help but to be conscious of the race
because of the strict segregation laws . I guess I had always had
a tendency to be concerned about the plight of the helpless ,
particularly Blacks at that time. That was just a part of my
upbringing .
ANDREW MANIS : Any ministers that you grew up listening to , to make
those kinds of applications?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well , no , in fact during that time you didn't have
many ministers who were you might say preaching kind of social
issues . There was not .
ANDREW MANIS : Do you remember who the first minister was that you
heard address in the context of a sermon the issue of Civil Rights?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well I suppose it was the Reverend Fred Lee
Shuttlesworth . But only after I had joined and become connected
with his movement locally that I did actually hear Dr . Martin
Luther King . So the first contact was with the Reverend Fred Lee
Shuttlesworth .
ANDREW MANIS: His organization , the Alabama Christian Movement for
Human Rights , was founded on the heels of the outlawing of the
NAACP in 1956. How soon after that did you become a participant in
the Movement?
DR. MACPHERSON : Well , it was not long after that. I remember
going to some of their initial meetings in the late fifties. When
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the NAACP was outlawed or banned in Alabama then these ministers
led by Reverend Shuttlesworth saw fit to form this organization
that they smiled about . Well I guess after the chartering of that
organization I suppose , maybe three or four months afterwards was
when I became connected with them .
ANDREW MANIS: Were you a student at Miles at that time?
DR . MACPHERSON: Yes . No, I was not a student but I was on the
faculty at Miles at that time . I finished Miles i n 1959. The
organization was formed in 1956 and I guess I became affiliated
with them around 1957 or 1958 .
ANDREW MANIS: And you were a member of what church at the time?
DR. MACPHERSON : Pleasant Grove Baptist Church which is here in
Fairfield .
ANDREW MANIS : Do you remember your first opportunity to encounter
Fred Shuttlesworth?
DR. MACPHERSON: I believe it was at a meeting at the old Smith and
Gaston Funeral Home where it was located down near where the old A.
G. Gaston Motel used to be . They had a meeting and they were
planning to test the desegregation on the busses .
first contact with him at that meeting .
ANDREW MANIS: Were you a volunteer?
That was my
DR . MACPHERSON: Yes , I volunteered . After they explained at that
meeting everything that we must do such as nonviolence , if we were
struck or anything , how we were to act and try to get the badge
number of the bus driver and that kind of information . I
volunteered to sit up front and ride the busses from downtown
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Birmingham to Fairfield here where I was living making sure that I
was in front of the colored signs . what we were saying was to
integrate in that manner.
ANDREW MANIS : Several different times when, as I recall from the
top of my head and without my notes, that Shuttlesworth and those
of you who were followers of his attempted to desegregate the
busses ride in a nonsegregated basis . Can you pinpoint when this
was?
DR . MACPHERSON : Yes , that was during 1957 or 1958 . Now I happen
to have -- now I did not encounter any incident in that I was not
arrested when we made that first test. But later on I read the
paper where there were about thirteen other Blacks, I think , who
were arrested. And thi s was going to provide us with the test case
that we wanted.
ANDREW MANIS : What else do you remember about that incident?
DR . MACPHERSON , Well , that particular incident I remember very
vividly. I boarded the bus in downtown Birmingham. It was an old
what we called "41 Express " that came from downtown Birmingham out
to Fairfield . We boarded that bus on Second Avenue about where
Loveman ' s was located . I sat up front in an area where the whites
were . The only thing I could hear were some of the people in the
back of the bus . The elderly Blacks you know, whoever started
mumbling and complaining . When the driver got down where what we
call the old car barn used to be located . This was the terminal
where Birmingham Transit Company had there buses . There is a hotel
located there now . He stopped the bus and he got off and he said
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something about " I got a smart nigger on the bus and wait until I
come back. " Well, I thought he must have felt that I was going to
get up and proceed to move to the back which I didn ' t . He went
into the car barn and came back and I was still sitting there. He
proceeded to drive the bus on its route out to Fairfield . I got
off without any incident .
ANDREW MANIS: Did you exchange any words?
DR . MACPHERSON: No, I didn ' t say anything . Didn ' t say a word . We
had been instructed not to say anything .
ANDREW MANIS: So his comment was -- I 'm assuming you left out a
word when you said "smart nigger " -- that was his -- he said that
simply on the basis of your sitting in the wrong section?
DR . MACPHERSON : Yeah. Right .
ANDREW MANIS : There were quite a few of these attempts . How often
did you involve yourself in these activities?
DR . MACPHERSON: That was my only att empt at riding the busses .
However test case . But we continued . You know the Alabama
Christian Movement was meeting every week on Monday nights . And
sometimes for a while there when things really got hot we met every
night. But we would attend those weekly meetings , my mother and
father, and the church in Birmingham . During that time also, one
thing about Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth , he believed in putting all
of his irons in the fire. And not only was he testing the
segregation on the busses but he had us to go down and test how to
become a policeman . That ' s another thing we did back in 1957 .
There was at one time a restriction on the rules and regulations of
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the Jefferson County Personnel Board that ' s primarily responsible
for hiring policemen , firemen and clerks for the County and other
ci ties. There was a "caucasian only tl clause . But when things
started to kind of boil, I think they kind of voluntarily removed
the "caucasian only " clause because they knew it wouldn't stand in
Federal court if we made a test case . So we went down. I was one
of the few Blacks that went down to take the test for policeman.
Because, well, I passed. I was about the first Black to pass that
Civil Service job . But they didn ' t call me down to interview for
the position. They c l aimed that they sent me word for an interview
and they removed my name by saying that I didn ' t come down for the
interview . So I took it again . And this time they called me for
an interview. I went down and I was interviewed for the position.
But they never would -- no Blacks could pass the test. The minimum
passing grade was 70 . Some made 67 , 68 and others , if they passed ,
they said they were a little too short , they didn't weigh enough,
they had things like that for disqualifying. So we came back with
a class -- the Alabama Christian Movement . We sent off and got
books from New York City. We had about 20 or 30 Blacks that had
military experience and we were teaching them how to go down and
pass that examination . That was the other thing that we were
testing at the same time. This bus, once you had made your test
case , then it was left up to your lawyers then to take it to
Federal court .
ANDREW MANIS: This was early , you say in 1957?
DR. MACPHERSON: That was in 1957. Started in 1957. That is when
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it first became admissi ble for a nonwhite to go down and take that
Civil Service exam for policemen . Prior to that it just had
tlcaucasians only lt and it was just blanket , you couldn ' t even take
the test.
ANDREW MANIS : How did that issue develop over the years? I think
I noticed on your wall a newspaper clipping about that and if I 'm
not mistaken it refers to George Seibels .
DR . MACPHERSON : Yes .
ANDREW MANIS : Would that have been when he was mayor?
DR. MACPHERSON : No , he hadn ' t become mayor at that time . It had
its begi nning when Mr. Bull Connor was police chief at that time .
Later on Birmingham adopted that mayor- council form of government.
Prior to that time Mr. Bull Connor was the predominant figure.
ANDREW MANIS : Well you mentioned that you interviewed twice . What
happened after the second interview? Or r ather that they called
you twice and that you interviewed.
DR . MACPHERSON: The second time they notified me to come down for
an interview and I went down to City Ha l l . This was the time in
the l ate fifties when City Hall was thoroughly segregated , the
restrooms , the water fountains . There were some places there that
a Black had never been . We viewed at that time that the Police
Department was the Number One enemy at that time . So this is where
we were going . I went down .
that was before Mr. Connor .
Finally they took me for a r un and
He asked me a question that " i f we
hired you as a policeman for the City of Birmingham, would you
arrest a white man? " I told him , "If you hired me as a policeman
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in the City of Birmingham, I would think that it would be my job
and my responsibility to arrest anyone who violated the laws of the
City of Birmingham regardless of their race. " That was about the
extent of the interview . The next week I received a letter that my
name had been removed . They claimed that I had moved from
Birmingham to Hueytown, to another municipality.
ANDREW MANIS: And that in itself disqualified you?
DR. MACPHERSON : That disqualified me then .
ANDREW MANIS: How much did Reverend Shuttlesworth have to do with
your decision to do all of this?
DR. MACPHERSON : Well, you might say probably everything because we
were following his leadership. He was providing excellent
leadership and he had to have some people. Once they removed the
"caucasians only " restrictions , we had to have some people to go
down and take those tests. We were going to prove that they still
didn ' t intend to hire any Blacks. So we were following his
leadership.
ANDREW MANIS: Did he individually recruit you or did you answer an
altar call?
DR. MACPHERSON : It was altar call . He didn ' t individually recruit
me , but once we were working on it and I realized we had to have --
well , let ' s go down and test this out . Now it ' s possible for
Blacks to go down and take the test. So I went down and took the
test , not only for police but for patrolman , deputy sheriff , clerk ,
firefighter -- all of those .
ANDREW MANIS: And you were the only one to pass those tests?
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DR. MACPHERSON: Initially, I was the first one to pass. Then
about a year l ater we got two other Blacks who were able to pass
the tests.
ANDREW MANIS: It was not until the mid- sixties that any Blacks
were hired .
DR . MACPHERSON: That ' s right.
ANDREW MAINS: Did you have anything to do with.
DR. MACPHERSON: No , I was away in school then when they hired the
first Black person. But things started getting better as a r esult
o f those massive demonstrations .
ANDREW MANIS: Now you were on the faculty at Miles beginning in
1957 , is that correct?
DR . MACPHERSON : That ' s right.
ANDREW MANIS: And you served in that capacity how l ong?
DR . t-1ACPHERSON: Actually I started working at Miles in September
of 1957 . Off and on , except f o r about five years when I was doing
additional studies I stayed out there until May of 1983.
back to do ph . D. work but it was from 1957 until 1983 .
ANDREW MANIS: Was that more or less a part time position?
DR. MACPHERSON: No, that was full time .
I went
ANDREW MANIS: Well, you seem to have so many jobs. You seem to
have a number of hats that you wear. Did you find that difficult
to balance all those roles that you played?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well, no, I guess it may perhaps have been the
nature of my personality .
busy doing something?
I am the type of person who must keep
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ANDREW MANIS: What was your age in 1957?
DR . MACPHERSON : Let ' s see , 1957 , I was born in 193 4 so I was 23
then .
ANDREW MANIS : Was Dr . Pitts the president at that time?
DR . MACPHERSON : At this particular time , in 1957 and 1958 , Dr .
William A. Bell was the president . Then Dr. Pitts came along after
Dr . Bell passed .
during that time.
I would say Dr . Pitts came around 1960 or 1961
Because Dr. Pitts was there I remember during
the Good Friday demonstrations in 1963.
ANDREW MANIS , What was the attitude of Dr. Bell and general
atti t ude among the faculty about Civil Rights and more particularl y
concerning Reverend Shuttlesworth?
DR. MACPHERSON : Somewhat aloof and somewhat behind the attitude
that you cannot beg a man and fight him at the same time . This is
a struggling Black institution . We ' ve got to depend on most of our
financial support from the whites . We can ' t fight them and beg
them , too . They would have rather remained aloof from it and had
no part in it whatsoever . That was prior to Dr . Pitts . That was
the president and that was the faculty also . You never had any
faculty involved in it prior to Dr . Pitts . Even after Dr . Pitts ,
you didn ' t have too much . Now I remember one demonstration where
they were trying to recruit a participant and there was one white
faculty member . I can ' t think of his name . I was about the on l y
Black faculty member who would participate actively and the others
were one or two whites that we had .
ANDREW MANIS , Just for a point of clarification , what was the
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white/black ratio on the faculty?
DR. MACPHERSON : We didn ' t have at that time too many whites on our
faculty . I would say it was about 95% Black.
ANDREW MANIS : So you were pretty much exceptional among the
faculty members in terms of being involved?
DR. MACPHERSON: In that respect yes.
ANDREW MANIS : Now how was Dr. Pitts different?
DR. MACPHERSON: Dr. Pitts, when he came , he was totally involved
and he encouraged participation of the students and the faculty .
Now , Dr. Pitts, when we did have interracial meetings , Dr. Pitts
was one of the initiators of those meetings . I just remember that
years later some of the first of those meetings I believe they were
held at what is now the Episcopal Church of the Advent. And there
were just a few whites. And when you met with them at that time
you couldn't even let it be known publicly that we had a few whites
and a few Blacks who were meeting . But I remember about three of
the whites in those initial meetings . Not some who came later .
There was a man who had an office supply business in Birmingham
named James Head . There was Emil Hess who was associated with
Parisians . There was a man from Sears Roebuck -- D. Roebuck . I
remember very vividly they were in on the initial meetings with Dr.
Pitts . Now Dr . Pitts encouraged the students . When he came I
guess he heard and he knew that I had been involved. And so he
asked me to kind of serve as an advisor to work with him.
Dukes was the student leader at the time.
ANDREW MANIS : He was older than the average student?
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Frank
DR. MACPHERSON : He was and I was the faculty advisor then. So we
were encouraged and we got our students involved in the
demonstrations and things.
ANDREW MANIS : Can you sort of narrate some of the things that the
students did? The most obvious one would be the one in 1962 -- the
selective buying. As student activities began, maybe you can just
sort of give me an overview of the highlights of student activities
in Birmingham .
DR. MACPHERSON: There was a selective buying campaign in which we
were printing leaflets on the mimeograph machine at Miles College
encouraging the Blacks -- they would say things like "why spend
$250 . 00 on clothing and you can ' t spend 25 cents on a hot dog at
the lunch counter in this store. " We would go at night church to
church and particularly on Saturday nights when they would have
church the next morning . And those churches that were open, we
would go inside and leave those leaflets on the pews trying to make
sure and at that time we were mindful of the fact that any activity
like that was illegal. It was against the law to boycott a
business so this is how it was done. Some of our students -- there
was a group of them who went down where the City jail on the
Southside is and demonstrated . Some of that group were arrested.
They were involved. But the most obvious thing about that
selective buying campaign which actually kind of softened
Birmingham up was the time Dr. King came here in 1963. It was
about ripe. It was about ready then . Those merchants were about
to capitulate then because of the effectiveness of that selective
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buying campaign .
ANDREW MANIS: Before I ask you to tell me some tale abou t that
campaign as best you can, can you first describe for me what role
Shuttlesworth had in the activities of the students?
DR . MACPHERSON : Shuttlesworth was the leader. He was the leader.
Maybe he wasn I t the director. But we a ll recognized he was the
general .
soldi ers .
He had to have some foot soldiers . And we were foot
We had to back , we have to give s upport and we had to
aid but Shuttlesworth was the type of leader that would inspire
courage , confidence and we looked at him as having charisma . He
was just that type . He inspired us and brought the whole segment
of gamut of Blacks together. Now there was a number of Blacks who
were not involved. There were just you might say a dedicated few
that was actually involved and I guess that is always the case .
But the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth formed that organization and he
had a hard core of avid supporters who met every week, who paid
money and who would do those things that needed to be done -­l
adies who would transport the students and things . Lots of people
who were not known . We had some professional women in downtown
Birmingham, women who had the time and the other thing and the
other thing, there were people who could not be fired from jobs .
A number of people did not participate even though they wanted to
participate but there was fear of economic reprisal. Now I can
think of two ladies immediately -- Mrs . Deenie Drew and Mrs.
Montgomery, Dr. James T. Montgomery's wife . Now they were two
ladies in the community who worked directly with the students in
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all of our effor ts to provide transportation and that sort of
thing .
ANDREW MANIS : You mentioned h i s leadership and his inspir at i onal
qualiti es as far as the students were concerned . Did he meet
regular ly with Frank Dukes and yourse l f or others to help and give
input in the planning of whatever activities the students were
doing?
DR . MACPHERSON : For the most part , what the students were doing
was somewhat divorced . We were operating at Miles College . But at
the same time everything that we did they were made aware of it so
that we would stay within and not go outside of what they would
approve of?
ANDREW MANIS: Were there times that you can recall that students
made plans that were more or less nixed by Shuttlesworth?
DR. MACPHERSON : No . As their advisor, number one , I suppose I
knew their thinki ng and strategy of Reverend Shuttlesworth and the
leaders more so than the students because I was going to the
meetings every week on Monday night and I would know when they were
going beyond . I knew about that so there was nothing that was ever
n i xed.
ANDREW MAN I S : Did they ever -- I mean students being students , did
they eve r feel that , it ' s hard to imagine thi s , but that you or
Shuttlesworth were going too slow?
DR . MACPHERSON: No , because Shuttlesworth was the type of man I
don ' t think that anyone would ever say that Fred Shuttlesworth was
going too slow .
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ANDREW MANIS: That's why I said ..
DR . MACPHERSON: Actually they would say the opposite . Moving too
fast . Reverend Shuttlesworth , unlike some of the other leaders who
might work on Sunday , he believed in putting all of his irons in
the fire and he did just that . Now I realize that Birmingham was
just a hard nut to crack. It was a difficult . Now I r ealize in
other places where the Blacks had gone into Federal court , for
instance , to desegregate the parks and things . They got decisions
ahead of Birmingham but Birmingham was just a different situation .
It was not because we had , Shuttlesworth had filed those suits and
things . But when we would file those suits in Federal court we
just had j udges here who were just sitting on them as long as they
coul d. I remember Judge Seybourne Lynn , I believe he was one
outstanding . If you got a case i n his court , he almost had to be
made to hear it and render a decision . But Reverend Shuttl esworth ,
no, he didn't move too slow .
ANDREW MANIS : Did you ever hold an office with the Alabama
Christian Movement?
DR . MACPHERSON : No I never did hold an office.
ANDREW MANIS: Other than your sitting on the bus , were there other
protest activities that you involved yourself with?
DR . MACPHERSON : I believe that was it -- the bus and the personnel
board test. I was in one demonstration and this was the one that
was held Good Friday of 1963. That was the one I remember very
vividly when we were down at the church -- not Sixteenth Street but
it was about a block from Sixteenth Street and Dr. King had been
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on the telephone with Robert Kennedy when John Kennedy was
president at that time and they had to assess whether or not we
would march. The church was filled to capacity and Andrew Young
he was , I never will forget , he was presiding to help keep the
group in order and also lead the singing until the decision was
made. Finally around noon , Dr . King came in and the march was on .
I think that was the time when Robert Kennedy and President Kennedy
were trying to get them not to march. That was called Good Friday .
I have a picture of that march. That ' s alive. I think it was taken
that was a picture from the Chicago Sun Times when we were
arrested in that march. That was the same march that night in
which Dr . King wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail. "
ANDREW MANIS: Right . Now you were in this march?
DR . MACPHERSON : Yeah . I was in that march.
ANDREW MANIS : Okay . Well , let me ask you as someone who was on
the scene , in my research I have gotten mixed indications about
whether or not Reverend Shuttlesworth was in this march . He is not
pictured here. You see Abernathy and you see Dr. King. However,
in other narrative accounts of that same march, I have seen
Reverend Shuttlesworth listed as one of the participants and yet I
do not see him in the photographs . Do you know?
DR . MACPHERSON: I just don ' t recall how Reverend Shuttlesworth was
involved. He was not there . But he organized that march . I 'm
sure of that.
ANDREW MANIS: Well , let me ask you to sort of -- well, I was about
to ask you to narrate sort of your life from day to day through the
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five weeks of this big demonstration . I will do that in a moment .
Because you came and went during those years , sometimes i t is not
clear when you were in Birmingham and when you were not. Were you
in Birmingham during the Freedom Riders?
DR . MACPHERSON : Do you recall what year that was?
ANDREW MANIS : Yes , that was May 1961 on Mother ' s Day , the 14th to
be exact . Two busses , one in Anniston , was burned and the other
bus brought riders to Bi rmingham and they were beaten at the bus
station .
DR . MACPHERSON : I th i nk that year I was in Bloomington , Indiana.
I spent one year at Indiana University and that was the year .
ANDREW MANIS: What was the atmosphere like in 1962 during that
rather lengthy selective buying campaign? Maybe you could just
tell me what stands out in your mind about that year .
DR. MACPHERSON,
it was . Fear.
On the part of Blacks, fear . Fear . This is what
And war . Things had gotten to the point that it
was just , you might say , all out for war between the races?
ANDREW MANIS , Let me back up and ask you , as someone who was
active in Alabama Christian Movement, what was the feeling of the
rank and f ile members of the organization , followers of
Shuttlesworth in August of 1961 when he moved from Bethel to
Revelation Baptist Church in Cincinnati?
DR. MACPHERSON : They hated to see him go . They hated to see him
go . The rank and file . They were the ones who believed strongly.
They were the ones who adored. They were the ones who just loved
the man . Because he could articulate the innermost feelings of the
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rank and file , people who you might say didn't have the education
to fight for themselves , but he could express. And he actually
did. His courage is what stood out most in a time when people were
fearful.
fearful.
And a lots of your ministers , preachers , they were
Lots of your Blacks. And your whites wouldn ' t take a
stand for right either. But your Blacks were fearful . There were
some churches where the Alabama Christian Movement couldn ' t even
meet. The congregations and the ministers wouldn ' t allow the
Movement to come there because they were fearful of bombings and
that sort of thing. So it was charge for them at that time. And
I will say one word and that is fear.
ANDREW MANIS : Did you ever have any opportunities to encounter
Reverend J . L. Ware?
DR . MACPHERSON: Reverend Ware, let me see now, was he the pastor -
- that name is very familiar. Yeah , wasn ' t he the.
ANDREW MANIS : Trinity Baptist Church .
DR. MACPHERSON : Yeah, right . He was the president of the
Ministers' Conference, Birmingham Ministers ' Conference . Sure .
ANDREW MANIS: What can you tell me about him? What do you recall
about him?
DR . MACPHERSON : Well, the thing that stands out in my mind , he was
not one of those leaders who used his position kind of in the
forefront of this struggle . His position may have been one of you
might say moderation. Go slow . He was not one of those ministers
who worked actively with the Alabama Christian Movement for Human
Rights.
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ANDREW MANIS: Was he older than Shuttlesworth?
DR. MACPHERSON : I don ' t think he was significantly older, no . He
was not that old.
ANDREW MANIS : You don ' t know anything else about his background?
DR . MACPHERSON: No , I don ' t. But I remember him very well . You
might describe him as a neat dresser , speaker . We might describe
him as kind of a cultured individual.
ANDREW MANIS : Was he well educated as you recall?
DR . MACPHERSON : No , I don ' t think so. Not well educated . I don't
think he went to any schools of higher learning.
ANDREW MANIS: As someone who i s well educated , how would you
classify the kind of education that Reverend Shuttlesworth has?
DR. MACPHERSON : I know Reverend Shuttlesworth finished Alabama
State Un i versity . But you must recognize the struggle that we were
in was not one that called so much for education as it called for
a man who had courage to speak and to do what is right and the
courage to challenge the powers that be.
had that.
Reverend Shuttlesworth
ANDREW MANIS : Well , I 'm sure you can see what I am getting at
here . I 'm wondering whether a lack of polish , lack of a degree
from Morehouse , Crozer , and Boston University and the rather blunt,
maybe even country preacher style of Reverend Shuttlesworth ,
contributed in some ways to some upper middle class Blacks not
liking Shuttlesworth or not participating in his Movement . Do you
think that was a real issue?
DR. MACPHERSON: No , it was not. Now , there were a number of those
20
who didn ' t accept Reverend King . Just because Reverend King had
degrees from Morehouse, Crozer and Boston University, these Blacks
still didn ' t accept him during this time . I 'm looking at things
that existed in the late fifties and sixties . Lots of them now
will acclaim that they were acquainted and were involved in the
Civil Rights Movement but they were not . Just like they didn ' t
accept Shuttlesworth a number of the so- called upper class Blacks
had the same attitude toward Dr . King . They didn ' t want any part
of Dr . King. They didn ' t want any part of Reverend Shuttlesworth,
for the same reason . Dr . King's degree didn ' t make him any more
appealing to certain people . Now there were churches that Dr. King
couldn ' t go to . There were churches where he couldn ' t speak .
There were many ministers who didn ' t support his Movement. It was
just a hard core few . Now it was that few that Reverend
Shuttlesworth had galvanized and welded together so that when Dr .
King just had the stature when he was invited to come into
Birmingham but Shuttlesworth had the organization that was the
vehicle by which he could do his work and lead those demonstrations
in 1963 . Had he not been able to deliver , and it is my
understanding that Reverend Shuttlesworth told Dr . King when they
were about to , when even Dr . King wanted to capitulate and agree to
some things that Reverend Shuttlesworth was not satisfied with ,
Reverend Shutt l esworth told him "Is that all you can get for me and
my people here in Birmingham? Is that all? " And Reverend King
would l ook and see Reverend Shuttlesworth coming and those who
would know would say "Here comes the greatest ! " That's what Dr .
21
King would say about him . Because he knew of Reverend
Shuttlesworth's courage . No . They didn ' t accept Dr . King.
ANDREW MANIS: There are some persons who were in Birmingham -- I 'm
thinking of Reverend Herbert Oliver who I talked with some months
ago . He more or less interprets it as such that if Dr . King was
able to garner support from these people in ways that Shuttlesworth
was not and that both of them obviously were essential to the
success of the Movement but that Shuttlesworth alone would never - -
Reverend Oliver's current interpretati on is that Reverend
Shuttlesworth alone would never have been able to get a fuller
measure of support from the Black middle class in Birmingham
without SCLC and Dr . King coming in .
DR . MACPHERSON , Well , I 'm not sure . That would be debateable.
And then I 'm not sure that the Black middle class even made a
contribution to Dr. King as such. No , I would say for the most
part was the little folks. The folks that were on the economic
level and in terms of their educational levels I would say the
middle class in Birmingham just evolved after the Civil Rights era.
But I remember during that time that people like they might say
otherwi se now and I remember one Black dentist we had here, Dr .
Welch I believe it was , who was actively i nvolved. We had a school
principal, Mrs . Lucinda B. Robey , who was involved and there was a
number of folks who supported but it was behind the scenes. You
have to look at the fact that the time that Dr. King had attained
some national acclaim as a result of Montgomery . People will have
a tendency to just follow a person , if they believe that the news
22
reporters, that they believe that the T.V. announcers are going to
be with that person and talk more with people in the limelight .
Now a number of your Blacks didn ' t accept Dr . King until you might
say he got the national acclaim . But as far as he is an unknown
media and coming up and supporting him, the Black middle class,
they never would have just because it was Dr. King and he had a
Ph.D . It was not until he had become national figure. Reverend
Shuttlesworth still would have done his job . See, because that was
the job that you might say "you didn't need the middle class ."
What we needed were some foot soldiers . Reverend Shuttlesworth
didn ' t need any Ph.D . ' s to advise him. But he needed some foot
soldiers to ride the busses and those people, those women who would
go and cook and provide for the demonstrators . That ' s what we
needed . If Dr. King hadn ' t , Reverend Shuttlesworth would have
proceeded . Dr . King just had that national stature. He was over
in Albany and then Reverend Shuttlesworth invited him to come in to
Birmingham . That ' s really , you might say was a killing thing for
Birmingham . But even if he hadn ' t come , it would have gone on.
ANDREW MANIS : But would it have been as successful?
DR. MACPHERSON: I think so, yes. Because the City had been
softened up by the selective buying campaign . Those businesses in
downtown Birmingham were ready to urge for a change. And Dr . King
came and just started leading . That ' s when school children started
going to jail . That was all that happened then . But if that other
work hadn ' t been done , like the selective buying effort , and
Reverend Shuttlesworth had that Movement galvanized , knit and
23
ready , then its doubtful that Dr. King would have been successful
and just come in here and have 3 , 000 to go to the jails .
ANDREW MANIS: Yes , well I think its fair to say that he woul dn ' t
have come at all . Dr . MacPherson , the Birmingham World , which was
edited by Emory L . Jackson, published some editorials just about
the time the 1963 demonstrations were getting underway , maybe they
were about a week old . But there was an editorial that Jackson
wrote that more or less railed criticisms of Shuttlesworth to a
lesser degree than King . Did that make much of a splash?
DR . MACPHERSON : No , and I ' d be surprised , Emory L. Jackson was a
great freedom fighter you might say . I would never have
interpreted his editorials as being either a veil of criticism of
either Shuttlesworth or Dr . King . Now the criticisms that were ,
were from the local dai l y newspapers , The Birmingham News and The
Birmingham Post- Herald . Now I remember very vividly, I think it
was The Birmingham Post- Herald had one writer, John Tucker Graves,
he especially -- that ' s where they constantl y criticized . But I
wouldn ' t think , now I 'm familiar wi th , I used to deliver The
Birmingham World . One reason that compelled me to deliver that
paper was because it had a message to the Black man . I felt that
when I delivered that paper twice a week that I was helping people
look at that message . And that message was "Register to vote . A
voteless people is a hopeless people . II That was the message . But
I never saw anything where I thought Jackson was critical. He
always encouraged . There may have been but even so , it was nothing
significant .
24
ANDREW MANIS: As we get into the narration of the 1963
demonstrations, tell me about your own involvement in the
demonstrations in 1963 .
DR . MACPHERSON: That was the only one , that Good Friday, March
1963. During the daytime I was teaching at Miles College and we
would go to the meetings at night and that was about it -- the
meetings and things, you know.
ANDREW MANI S : What was the atmosphere? Being a teacher, I I ve
walked into classes and overheard what students were talking about .
What were you overhearing in the halls of Miles College from April
3 to May 10, 1963?
DR. MACPHERSON: In 1963 everybody was maybe thinking that I was
something like a freak , crazy , stupid?
ANDREW MANIS : How do you know that?
DR. MACPHERSON : Going down to the demonstration, your life was on
the line at the time. You might get killed . Even when I took the
test for police patrolman I didn ' t realize until years later that
white men would ride up and down the street where I live and they
would ask some of the Blacks "where did Jonathan MacPherson live?"
I didn ' t know about that until years later. My mother told me
about it . Those same people would just look at you and wouldn ' t
say anything . That ' s the same way I looked at college. Some of
your coworkers would look at you as if you were something strange
for what you have done in demonstrations and things .
ANDREW MANIS : What about the students at Miles during that spring?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well , we had a few students who got involved but
25
the majority of the students were just like t he majority of the
Black population. They were afraid.
ANDREW MAN I S : Were the comments they made negative?
DR. MACPHERSON : No, I never did come across hearing negative
comments . I never did from the students . But one good thing about
it that helped the student body as a whol e was that we had a
president who encouraged this sort of thing . Gradually we got more
faculty involved so we got more students involved .
ANDREW MANIS: What sort of concrete actions did Dr . Pitts do to
encourage the demonstrations in general and specifically the ones
in 1963?
DR. MACPHERSON :
involved . Now
He kind of left that up to me . Get the students
one of the things specifically I remember him
telling me "wherever you go , always try to have some young lady
involved with you. " So we got at least one female student for
everything we did . We made sure we would have one . Dr . Pitts was
trying to communicate with the community, having the business
leaders communicate with them and at the same time we were down
there involved in the demonstration of students.
ANDREW MANIS : Were you ever privy to his thinking o r his thoughts
about his meetings with white business leaders? Di d he ever talk
to you about what was taking place in those meetings?
DR. MACPHERSON : No , I was involved in two or three of those
i n i tial meetings and after that I went off to school .
ANDREW MAN I S : What do you recall about the meeti ngs you did
participate in?
26
DR. MACPHERSON: I just can ' t recall other than some of the faces,
you know and that we discussed things like the desegregation of the
public lunch counters .
ANDREW MANIS : Does anything stand out about what they said?
DR. MACPHERSON: The only thing at one of the meetings that stands
out is when one of your white leaders tried to playa tactic that
I thought that whites have always tried to play and that is divide
the Blacks . We went to this meeting . Frank Dukes was there . I
was there . Dr . Pitts was there and maybe one or two students and
then white leaders were there . This particular white leader
singled out Frank Dukes for singular praise and that sort of thing .
I got the impression that it was a play to try to divide our group .
That ' s the way it came across to me at that time . That ' s about
all . Other than that I don't remember . I remember we had the
things we would like to see . Seems like it was about a thirteen
point program that we wanted -- desegregation of the lunch counter ,
hiring of the Blacks and that sort of thing . wanted the white
business leaders to help work on .
ANDREW MANIS: What was your experience in this march on Good
Friday? Can you walk through that with me?
DR . MACPHERSON: Yes , well , we got to the church I guess it was
about 9 : 00 in the morning . We started assembling for that march.
The church was packed. Dr . King , Reverend Shuttlesworth , I would
suppose , had to make the decision as to whether or not we would
march because the President John F . Kennedy and Attorney General
Robert Kennedy was trying to persuade them to call off the
27
demonstr ations. I remember Andrew Young , who was a lieutenant for
Dr . King . I remember a young lady . I think her name was Do r othy
Cotton . She was another aide to Dr . King . They would l ead the
group in singing to pass t he time . Final l y around noon the people
were anxious to march . They wanted to march and Dr . King came out .
We had received the go- ahead that we would proceed with the march .
I remember when we filed out and we were going up to Kelley Ingram
Park . I was about the thi rd or fourth person behind Dr . King . We
got up to Fifth Avenue North and 17th Str eet . We started to cross
that intersection and there was a wh i te policeman who wheeled his
motorcycle in front of Dr . King . This was right where the Federal
buildi ng is now in downtown Birmingham . He wheeled his motorcycle
in front of Dr . Ki ng and called a halt to the march . Dr . Ki ng and
other leaders , they l ooked down to pray . When they said they would
proceed with the march they started to a r rest everybody. Now I was
not in the same paddy wagon that Dr . King went to jail in , but when
we got over to the jai l that time, there were other Blacks who were
already in jai l for demonstr ating . That was my first time t o be
confined . All you could hear that n i ght was singing. They were
singing the freedom songs . You could hear the women who were
housed in another section . You could just hear them and they had
found t he code necessary of trying to find out how Dr . King was
doing .
jails .
night.
We knew how Bl acks were mistreated a t tha t time i n the
There was no bed . We s l ept on the concrete floor that
ANDREW MANIS : How many in a cell?
28
DR . MACPHERSON: I was in one of these open things . I guess about
like this room. I understand they had taken Dr. King and Abernathy
to other quarters. Mine was kind of open where I was. When I got
there , there was kind of an elderly gentleman who was active in the
Movement. I never will forget him . He was an old man but he was
very active in the Movement from week to week. His name was
Brother Meadows. I said, "Brother Meadows, what are you doing
here? " He was old and his words to me were "I 'm going all the way .
I want to see what the end is going to be like? " So there were
several of us . The next morning is when they came and got me
because someone had come and arranged my bond . Later on is when we
found out about Dr . King and that "Letter from the Birmingham
Jail . "
ANDREW MANIS: So what happened after you were released?
DR . MACPHERSON : After I was released we just went back to the
normal follow- up. That was what happened. I think Dr . King stayed
in jail
Hall .
for maybe several days. I remember going down to City
I was at the same time when we had to go to answer that
charge about marching without a permit "parading without a permit "
I think is what the charge was. Of course you could see the attire
that Dr. King had on. I remember sitting in jail where the City
Hall chambers is in Municipal Court in downtown Birmingham where
Emory Adkins?? resides is where Dr. King sat to await his hearing.
That was about 1963.
ANDREW MANIS: Do you have any outstanding recollections of seeing
Reverend Shuttlesworth or talking to Reverend Shuttlesworth during
29
those demonstrations?
DR . MACPHERSON: Yeah , most of the time Reverend Shuttlesworth had
a speaking engagement . I would introduce him. For instance, when
he comes back to the city now, quite often he invites me to
introduce him . I had gone to his house and we talked about the
issue of the Black policeman .
ANDREW MANIS: I meant during the 1963 demonstrations , say , from
day to day . Did you have many opportunities to observe him?
DR . MACPHERSON : Not on a daily basis , just weekly . At the
meetings that we would attend .
ANDREW MANIS : You were teaching during the days . You said you
went to the mass meetings which occurred every night for five weeks
or so .
DR. MACPHERSON : For a period. Yes .
ANDREW MANIS : Do any of those mass meetings stand out in your
memory?
DR . MACPHERSON: All of them were typically about the same . They
would be at a different church . We would always have ou r speaker
who was usually a preacher . The City of Birmingham would send two
detectives on the front pew to take notes and record everything
that went on. Some of those meetings, when we left they woul d have
members of the police department to flash pictures of the people
who were attending . They would be sitting in their cars . But the
police department as we left , some of them would follow and trail
us for a long ways , just anything to incite fear to the people .
ANDREW MANIS: Did you, say from 1957 on, would you say you
30
attended almost every Monday night meeting?
DR . MACPHERSON : From 1 957 and for about two years before I went
off to school . We attended almost every weekly meeting, my dad and
my mother , yes.
ANDREW MANIS , I am trying to nail down when a particular mass
meeting may have taken place and sort of fil l in the gaps of what
happened. There ' s a report in one of the -- at one of the mass
meetings , and I think it was some time in the fifties . The fi r e
marshall came and tried to evacuate the church building and
Reverend Shuttlesworth wouldn ' t allow the people to evacuate until
he had proof , or that he was convinced that this wasn ' t a trick and
that it really was an issue of fi r e safety . Were you there?
DR . MACPHERSON: I have been at meetings when that d i d happen .
That happened more than one time . Now I don ' t know whether he said
do it but I have been there when they have cleared the aisles and
everything and even tried to declare that some of the churches were
not safe for that gathering.
ANDREW MANIS: This was a particular one . I 'm sure it happened
more than once but this is a particular one where finally after
some cajoling on the part of the fire chief , Reverend Shuttlesworth
gave in and everybody got up and moved to another church .
DR . MACPHERSON : I don ' t remember that one . That may have been the
time I was not here .
ANDREW MANIS : The reason I asked about that is because of the
comment that Reverend Shuttlesworth supposedly made in this context
when they came in looking for fire , his comment was "the kind of
31
fire we have in here you can't put out with hose or ashes." I 'm
wondering if that was kind of a standard line that he used .
DR . MACPHERSON: (Laughs.) Well , I don ' t know but that sounds just
like him.
ANDREW MANIS: Do you think there have been -- I 'm certain that
you ' ve read some if not all of the biographies of Dr . King and,
naturally when a biographer is focusing on King, particularly with
what ultimately happened to him and the mythic quality that he has
taken on since his death , that Shuttlesworth always sort of suffers
by comparison in that setting, but the discussion on the part of
some biographers or writers is that Shuttlesworth was of unstable
personality, he was dictatorial, that he was petulant, that he was
jealous of King, that he was hard to work with, that he couldn ' t
work with people -- John Porter was even quoted as saying something
along that line in one of the biographies . How does that depiction
of Fred Shuttlesworth set with you?
DR. MACPHERSON : I would say "none of that would be true nor is a
picture of Fred Shuttlesworth ." Fred Shuttlesworth was not
dictatorial, he was not impressive and petulant . The mind was most
reasonable and sane. You had to be during the times and given the
conditions that existed then, well , you may have been dictatorial
but you couldn ' t say that this was the kind of dictatorial -­necessity
-- it was out of necessity . He was just doing the thing
that no one else would do . He had to do it . Even John T. Porter -
- John Porter was not involved a great deal in those struggles.
John Porter pastors a church and the Alabama Christian Movement was
32
not even permitted to meet in the church that he started pastoring.
And I don ' t think it met there much even after he started pastoring
that church. But those people who know Reverend Shuttlesworth and
I don ' t think Reverend Porter has that intimate knowledge during
these times that may have been applied after because you've got a
number of Blacks who came on the scene after the battle and the
fight was over . I'm trying to look at things during that
particular time and not in terms as Birmingham and the world exists
now and then look at it back in 1957 and in the sixties but I am
trying to look at it as it existed during that particular time. I
would say "no , he was not. " Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, had he
done that sort of thing, how do you think a man could galvanize
enough people , given the racial climate as it existed, to fill , but
yet he was able to galvanize enough people to meet every week and
would provide the meager financial resources and would provide the
manpower to do what was done. He couldn't have done that if he had
been petulant, a dictator , and all of those other things that some
want you to believe. No .
ANDREW MANIS: In the years after 1963 where Fred was still
attempting , at least up until 1966 and 1967 , to lead the Movement
in Birmingham after 1963 when police brutality and the hiring of
police came back to the forefront as the issues -- and also a
period in which Reverend Joseph Lowery was here, was there any kind
of -- the things I've read, which were reports of detectives, and
sometimes Black informants , that there seems to have been some
rivalry between Shuttlesworth and Lowery during those mid- sixty
33
years .
DR . MACPHERSON : No , I don't think so . Now there are some
individuals from certain quarters who might want it to appear that
there was rivalry but I ' ve never got the i mpression that t here was
any rivalry. Birmingham and everyone who was familiar with the
Civil Rights Movement , they would just say that Birmingham is Fred
Shuttlesworth ' s town. Everybody knows here that if they got any
sense or any knowledge at all of history they know that Fred
Shuttlesworth was the man who broke the ground in Birmingham, not
Joseph Lowery who is head of the SCLC . It would not have been
necessary for there to have been a rivalry between the two .
ANDREW MANIS : Why was there -- I mean up until -- I don't know
when there came to be a Birmingham Branch of SCLC . I 'm not sure
when that happened . But there wasn ' t one i n 1 963 because you had
the Alabama Christi an Movement and which was THE organization . It
seems t o me the ve r y fact that there was at some later point duri ng
the mid- sixties the beginnings of a Birmingham -- I 'm not sure the
world "branch " i s a correct term, but affiliate of SCLC might
indicate some institutional or organizational rivalry going on .
Maybe you can clarify that.
DR. MACPHERSON: Well , there may not have been a rivalry . I
believe it was more the fact t hat SCLC , I don ' t remember the year
that was born , but I believe a fter Fred Shuttlesworth left t he
Alabama Christian Movement t ook on new leadership and I be lieve the
SCLC was born because a few people who had been active i n the
Alabama Christian Movement were not quite satisfied with the
34
leadership other than Fred Shuttlesworth was providing for the
Alabama Christian Movement . I think they felt it was not actually
addressing problems in Bi rmingham as aggressively as Fred
Shuttl esworth would have . I believe that gave more to the birth of
SCLC than anything else .
ANDREW MANIS : By that you mean the birth of SCLC in Birmingham?
DR . MACPHERSON: Yeah , in Birmingham .
ANDREW MANIS : Was there a probl em in Shuttlesworth's maintaining
his efforts in Birmingham in the mid- sixties after he had already
been living in Cincinnati? Did that ever cause a problem? I know
white folks would say "We l l he doesn't live in Birmingham, why is
he sti ll bothering wi th us? "
DR . MACPHERSON : I don ' t think so . After he l eft it was turned
over to Reverend Edward Gardner . If they ever needed the leadership
of Reverend Shuttlesworth they would just call Cincinnati and ask
him to come down, not only the Christian Movement but SCLC also ,
which he has been down several times to support efforts here .
ANDREW MAN I S : what do you make of the gradual change in Bi r mingham
and its attitude toward Fred Shuttlesworth? In some ways I 'm sure
it stayed the same , but there has been , when David Vann was mayor ,
there was a Fred Shuttlesworth Day . And then more recently
Huntsvil le Road was renamed Shuttlesworth Drive . what do you make
of those developments over the years?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well, I think it was an appropriate honor for the
man for what he had done to bring this city , not had it benefitted
Blacks but it benefitted whites also . We come, after we look back ,
35
we come to realize that now that what he has done for not just
Blacks but whites also . It liberates the thinking of whites as
well as Blacks and their accomplishments . This is our way of
saying thank you to Fred Shuttlesworth who went to jail and
beatings and all the persecutions this man suffered. His house was
bombed, his church was bombed , his life threatened , he was beaten
with chains at Phillips Hi gh School . When we look back the man who
had to go through that sort of thing just to get signs off of the
bus, I guess it would be fitting to do something for him .
ANDREW MANIS: Do you think whi tes in Birmingham are any more
likely to celebrate Fred Shuttlesworth than they were thirty years
ago .
DR . MACPHERSON : We l l , they would be more likely today than thirty
years ago . There would be much more likelihood now than thirty
years ago . Thirty years ago people would just say "No. " But there
so many of the whites that are not as familiar with his work, his
accomplishments . The elderl y ones might look at it from the
viewpoint "Oh , that ' s the man when Bull Connor was the Police
Commissioner ." "That ' s the man , we ' ve heard his name so many times
and saw him on T.V., Fred Shuttlesworth , the troublemaker . " That's
how they would feel.
ANDREW MANIS: Is there an anecdote or a story or an encounter that
you had with Shuttlesworth, a story about h i m that you know of that
you haven't told me about that you think I should know about?
DR . MACPHERSON : Let me think. I remember one meeting that we had
-- kind of a strategy meeting. Reverend Shuttlesworth and A. G.
36
Gaston. They found different -- two directions at that meeting .
They almost -- their differences were getting out of hand. There
was a Black dentist, Dr. Wilkes , who was at this meeting also . I
think Dr. Gaston was one who wanted to urge caution and waiting.
Fred Shuttlesworth wanted to move ahead . I think Dr. Pitts was the
one who kind of came between them and got their thinking together.
But I never will forget how Mr. Gaston referred to Reverend
Shuttlesworth . He kind of pronounced his name as Shutt I ' worth .
Kind of' like that "Shuttl ' worth ." But despite the fact of what
they say now, what they give to Dr. Gaston , Dr . Gaston was not one
of those who was pushing Civil Rights . He was providing facilities
and was urging caution . But Fred Shuttlesworth was a man that you
just couldn ' t urge that caution . Some people would say "wait until
it calms down ." Fred Shuttlesworth would just say we must proceed
with what we have to do . But I think on many occasions , sometimes
he would come back to preach revivals . Or Dr. King would come,
when he didn ' t stay at the motel , he would stay at Seventh Street
at the home of the Drews . John J . Drew and Mr. Dukes and myself ,
we have stayed around that house a l l night to guard wherever he
lived. Reverend Shuttl esworth ' s mother still lives in Birmi ngham.
You know that. At Oxmoor .
ANDREW MANIS : You must have had opportunities to talk with Dr .
Pitts quite a bit . What was his opinion of Reverend Shuttlesworth?
Did they get along?
DR . MACPHERSON: Oh yeah .
ANDREW MANIS : Were there ever times when Dr . Pitts thought that
37
Shuttlesworth was moving too fast?
DR . MACPHERSON: No , no . Dr . Pitts would just take the attitude
that his job was president of the college and his as Civil Rights
leader and what I as the presidents and what the students can do to
support Shuttlesworth -- getting out there and being on the line .
Yes .
ANDREW MANIS : How did Dr . Pitts solve the dilemma you mentioned
earlier? You can ' t "beg a man and fight a man " at the same time?
DR . MACPHERSON: He just didn't worry about it . Seemingly hi s
attitude is that our freedom , and it was taken on at that time , our
freedom comes first . This is what we want , irrespective of
anything that it is freedom day before yesterday . That was his
attitude . I don ' t care if they do hold up my (cannot understand).
That was his attitude and he had other strategy .
northerners to give support to the institution .
ANDREW MANIS: Well, I appreciate your time .
He appealed to
DR . MACPHERSON : I 'm certainly glad to know that the book will be
done on Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth because he is so brilliant and
he has been a great leader. I just happen to be glad for any
recognition or honor that would come to him because it is long
overdue for him . I think , as you said, so much has been focused on
Dr. King and perhaps others , but this was a man who , in my
estimation , didn ' t have the polish , didn ' t have t he eloquence of
Dr . King but he was just as great and the job that he did was just
as significant.
38

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Holding.Institution

Birmingham Public Library (Alabama)

Full Text

This is an interview with Dr . Jonathan MacPherson of Birmingham ,
Alabama . Dr . MacPherson was a professor at Miles College during
the 1960s and was very active in the Civil Rights Movement in
Birmingham as a Miles professor and also as a member of the Alabama
Christian Movement for Human Rights led by Reverend Fred
Shuttlesworth. This interview concerns Dr. MacPherson ' s activities
in Civil Rights and his remembrances of the activities of Reverend
Fred Shuttlesworth. The interview was conducted by Andrew Manis at
Dr. MacPherson ' s office in Birmingham on August 4, 1989 .
ANDREW MANIS: Dr . MacPherson, perhaps we could begin with your
background , where you grew up, where you were educated, how you
moved into the ministry and that sort of information.
DR. MACPHERSON: Well , I was born in Fairfield here back in 1934.
I attended the local schools and finished high school suma cum laud
as valedictorian of my class in 1952. For the next three years I
attended Miles College and attained my bachelor ' s degree and after
that I went to Indiana and attended Purdue University for two years
and I came back to Miles College and served on the faculty in the
natural science department for several years and then I continued
advanced studies at Indiana University and finally obtained my
Ph. D. degree in chemistry from Howard Uni versi ty in Washington ,
D. C. During the times of the sixties I was primarily on the
faculty at Miles College.
ANDREW MANIS: Perhaps you can tell me about your religious
background . I noticed that you are a minister and you can tell me
how you became a minister.
1
DR. MACPHERSON: Well, I always since early childhood have been in
church . It was a part of our upbringing. But as I grew older and
went into young adulthood I guess I always had a leaning toward the
ministry . But I didn 1 t finally experience and express my call into
the ministry until 1966. I was a student at Kansas State
University and I remember very vividly the things that were most
dramatic and caused me to accept the call . We went to the campus
early. I guess that time it was the latter part of August and the
other students had not arrived . We had some foreign students there
from Africa and other nations . And we were in the dormitory and
that night it seems I experienced a dream and in that dream I saw
a man with his back turned toward me knocking on the door. When he
turned I could see blood streaming down his face and I just said ,
"Jesus, Jesus ." That was the incident that let me know and led me
in the ministry. So I was licensed by the Pureville Baptist Church
in Manhattan , Kansas in 1966 . The following year I transferred
over to Washington , D. C. because there was a larger metropolitan
area . We had more Blacks there and I was associated with the
Canaan Baptist Church . They ordained me as the assistant pastor of
that church in 1967. That same year , 1967 , is when I obtained my
terminal degree. I returned to Birmingham and started pastoring
locally the St. John Baptist Church in March of 1968 . I am still
the pastor there .
ANDREW MANIS : When did you first begin to see some connection
between the gospel and the issue of Civil Rights?
DR. MACPHERSON : Well I suppose it was -- well early on paper and
2
as a result of your reading I could see in the Bible Old Testament
prophets like Amos and those . But it was not until 1958 , I suppose
I was always conscious of race. Anyone coming up in the South and
in Birmingham, they couldn ' t help but to be conscious of the race
because of the strict segregation laws . I guess I had always had
a tendency to be concerned about the plight of the helpless ,
particularly Blacks at that time. That was just a part of my
upbringing .
ANDREW MANIS : Any ministers that you grew up listening to , to make
those kinds of applications?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well , no , in fact during that time you didn't have
many ministers who were you might say preaching kind of social
issues . There was not .
ANDREW MANIS : Do you remember who the first minister was that you
heard address in the context of a sermon the issue of Civil Rights?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well I suppose it was the Reverend Fred Lee
Shuttlesworth . But only after I had joined and become connected
with his movement locally that I did actually hear Dr . Martin
Luther King . So the first contact was with the Reverend Fred Lee
Shuttlesworth .
ANDREW MANIS: His organization , the Alabama Christian Movement for
Human Rights , was founded on the heels of the outlawing of the
NAACP in 1956. How soon after that did you become a participant in
the Movement?
DR. MACPHERSON : Well , it was not long after that. I remember
going to some of their initial meetings in the late fifties. When
3
the NAACP was outlawed or banned in Alabama then these ministers
led by Reverend Shuttlesworth saw fit to form this organization
that they smiled about . Well I guess after the chartering of that
organization I suppose , maybe three or four months afterwards was
when I became connected with them .
ANDREW MANIS: Were you a student at Miles at that time?
DR . MACPHERSON: Yes . No, I was not a student but I was on the
faculty at Miles at that time . I finished Miles i n 1959. The
organization was formed in 1956 and I guess I became affiliated
with them around 1957 or 1958 .
ANDREW MANIS: And you were a member of what church at the time?
DR. MACPHERSON : Pleasant Grove Baptist Church which is here in
Fairfield .
ANDREW MANIS : Do you remember your first opportunity to encounter
Fred Shuttlesworth?
DR. MACPHERSON: I believe it was at a meeting at the old Smith and
Gaston Funeral Home where it was located down near where the old A.
G. Gaston Motel used to be . They had a meeting and they were
planning to test the desegregation on the busses .
first contact with him at that meeting .
ANDREW MANIS: Were you a volunteer?
That was my
DR . MACPHERSON: Yes , I volunteered . After they explained at that
meeting everything that we must do such as nonviolence , if we were
struck or anything , how we were to act and try to get the badge
number of the bus driver and that kind of information . I
volunteered to sit up front and ride the busses from downtown
4
Birmingham to Fairfield here where I was living making sure that I
was in front of the colored signs . what we were saying was to
integrate in that manner.
ANDREW MANIS : Several different times when, as I recall from the
top of my head and without my notes, that Shuttlesworth and those
of you who were followers of his attempted to desegregate the
busses ride in a nonsegregated basis . Can you pinpoint when this
was?
DR . MACPHERSON : Yes , that was during 1957 or 1958 . Now I happen
to have -- now I did not encounter any incident in that I was not
arrested when we made that first test. But later on I read the
paper where there were about thirteen other Blacks, I think , who
were arrested. And thi s was going to provide us with the test case
that we wanted.
ANDREW MANIS : What else do you remember about that incident?
DR . MACPHERSON , Well , that particular incident I remember very
vividly. I boarded the bus in downtown Birmingham. It was an old
what we called "41 Express " that came from downtown Birmingham out
to Fairfield . We boarded that bus on Second Avenue about where
Loveman ' s was located . I sat up front in an area where the whites
were . The only thing I could hear were some of the people in the
back of the bus . The elderly Blacks you know, whoever started
mumbling and complaining . When the driver got down where what we
call the old car barn used to be located . This was the terminal
where Birmingham Transit Company had there buses . There is a hotel
located there now . He stopped the bus and he got off and he said
5
something about " I got a smart nigger on the bus and wait until I
come back. " Well, I thought he must have felt that I was going to
get up and proceed to move to the back which I didn ' t . He went
into the car barn and came back and I was still sitting there. He
proceeded to drive the bus on its route out to Fairfield . I got
off without any incident .
ANDREW MANIS: Did you exchange any words?
DR . MACPHERSON: No, I didn ' t say anything . Didn ' t say a word . We
had been instructed not to say anything .
ANDREW MANIS: So his comment was -- I 'm assuming you left out a
word when you said "smart nigger " -- that was his -- he said that
simply on the basis of your sitting in the wrong section?
DR . MACPHERSON : Yeah. Right .
ANDREW MANIS : There were quite a few of these attempts . How often
did you involve yourself in these activities?
DR . MACPHERSON: That was my only att empt at riding the busses .
However test case . But we continued . You know the Alabama
Christian Movement was meeting every week on Monday nights . And
sometimes for a while there when things really got hot we met every
night. But we would attend those weekly meetings , my mother and
father, and the church in Birmingham . During that time also, one
thing about Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth , he believed in putting all
of his irons in the fire. And not only was he testing the
segregation on the busses but he had us to go down and test how to
become a policeman . That ' s another thing we did back in 1957 .
There was at one time a restriction on the rules and regulations of
6
the Jefferson County Personnel Board that ' s primarily responsible
for hiring policemen , firemen and clerks for the County and other
ci ties. There was a "caucasian only tl clause . But when things
started to kind of boil, I think they kind of voluntarily removed
the "caucasian only " clause because they knew it wouldn't stand in
Federal court if we made a test case . So we went down. I was one
of the few Blacks that went down to take the test for policeman.
Because, well, I passed. I was about the first Black to pass that
Civil Service job . But they didn ' t call me down to interview for
the position. They c l aimed that they sent me word for an interview
and they removed my name by saying that I didn ' t come down for the
interview . So I took it again . And this time they called me for
an interview. I went down and I was interviewed for the position.
But they never would -- no Blacks could pass the test. The minimum
passing grade was 70 . Some made 67 , 68 and others , if they passed ,
they said they were a little too short , they didn't weigh enough,
they had things like that for disqualifying. So we came back with
a class -- the Alabama Christian Movement . We sent off and got
books from New York City. We had about 20 or 30 Blacks that had
military experience and we were teaching them how to go down and
pass that examination . That was the other thing that we were
testing at the same time. This bus, once you had made your test
case , then it was left up to your lawyers then to take it to
Federal court .
ANDREW MANIS: This was early , you say in 1957?
DR. MACPHERSON: That was in 1957. Started in 1957. That is when
7
it first became admissi ble for a nonwhite to go down and take that
Civil Service exam for policemen . Prior to that it just had
tlcaucasians only lt and it was just blanket , you couldn ' t even take
the test.
ANDREW MANIS : How did that issue develop over the years? I think
I noticed on your wall a newspaper clipping about that and if I 'm
not mistaken it refers to George Seibels .
DR . MACPHERSON : Yes .
ANDREW MANIS : Would that have been when he was mayor?
DR. MACPHERSON : No , he hadn ' t become mayor at that time . It had
its begi nning when Mr. Bull Connor was police chief at that time .
Later on Birmingham adopted that mayor- council form of government.
Prior to that time Mr. Bull Connor was the predominant figure.
ANDREW MANIS : Well you mentioned that you interviewed twice . What
happened after the second interview? Or r ather that they called
you twice and that you interviewed.
DR . MACPHERSON: The second time they notified me to come down for
an interview and I went down to City Ha l l . This was the time in
the l ate fifties when City Hall was thoroughly segregated , the
restrooms , the water fountains . There were some places there that
a Black had never been . We viewed at that time that the Police
Department was the Number One enemy at that time . So this is where
we were going . I went down .
that was before Mr. Connor .
Finally they took me for a r un and
He asked me a question that " i f we
hired you as a policeman for the City of Birmingham, would you
arrest a white man? " I told him , "If you hired me as a policeman
8
in the City of Birmingham, I would think that it would be my job
and my responsibility to arrest anyone who violated the laws of the
City of Birmingham regardless of their race. " That was about the
extent of the interview . The next week I received a letter that my
name had been removed . They claimed that I had moved from
Birmingham to Hueytown, to another municipality.
ANDREW MANIS: And that in itself disqualified you?
DR. MACPHERSON : That disqualified me then .
ANDREW MANIS: How much did Reverend Shuttlesworth have to do with
your decision to do all of this?
DR. MACPHERSON : Well, you might say probably everything because we
were following his leadership. He was providing excellent
leadership and he had to have some people. Once they removed the
"caucasians only " restrictions , we had to have some people to go
down and take those tests. We were going to prove that they still
didn ' t intend to hire any Blacks. So we were following his
leadership.
ANDREW MANIS: Did he individually recruit you or did you answer an
altar call?
DR. MACPHERSON : It was altar call . He didn ' t individually recruit
me , but once we were working on it and I realized we had to have --
well , let ' s go down and test this out . Now it ' s possible for
Blacks to go down and take the test. So I went down and took the
test , not only for police but for patrolman , deputy sheriff , clerk ,
firefighter -- all of those .
ANDREW MANIS: And you were the only one to pass those tests?
9
DR. MACPHERSON: Initially, I was the first one to pass. Then
about a year l ater we got two other Blacks who were able to pass
the tests.
ANDREW MANIS: It was not until the mid- sixties that any Blacks
were hired .
DR . MACPHERSON: That ' s right.
ANDREW MAINS: Did you have anything to do with.
DR. MACPHERSON: No , I was away in school then when they hired the
first Black person. But things started getting better as a r esult
o f those massive demonstrations .
ANDREW MANIS: Now you were on the faculty at Miles beginning in
1957 , is that correct?
DR . MACPHERSON : That ' s right.
ANDREW MANIS: And you served in that capacity how l ong?
DR . t-1ACPHERSON: Actually I started working at Miles in September
of 1957 . Off and on , except f o r about five years when I was doing
additional studies I stayed out there until May of 1983.
back to do ph . D. work but it was from 1957 until 1983 .
ANDREW MANIS: Was that more or less a part time position?
DR. MACPHERSON: No, that was full time .
I went
ANDREW MANIS: Well, you seem to have so many jobs. You seem to
have a number of hats that you wear. Did you find that difficult
to balance all those roles that you played?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well, no, I guess it may perhaps have been the
nature of my personality .
busy doing something?
I am the type of person who must keep
10
ANDREW MANIS: What was your age in 1957?
DR . MACPHERSON : Let ' s see , 1957 , I was born in 193 4 so I was 23
then .
ANDREW MANIS : Was Dr . Pitts the president at that time?
DR . MACPHERSON : At this particular time , in 1957 and 1958 , Dr .
William A. Bell was the president . Then Dr. Pitts came along after
Dr . Bell passed .
during that time.
I would say Dr . Pitts came around 1960 or 1961
Because Dr. Pitts was there I remember during
the Good Friday demonstrations in 1963.
ANDREW MANIS , What was the attitude of Dr. Bell and general
atti t ude among the faculty about Civil Rights and more particularl y
concerning Reverend Shuttlesworth?
DR. MACPHERSON : Somewhat aloof and somewhat behind the attitude
that you cannot beg a man and fight him at the same time . This is
a struggling Black institution . We ' ve got to depend on most of our
financial support from the whites . We can ' t fight them and beg
them , too . They would have rather remained aloof from it and had
no part in it whatsoever . That was prior to Dr . Pitts . That was
the president and that was the faculty also . You never had any
faculty involved in it prior to Dr . Pitts . Even after Dr . Pitts ,
you didn ' t have too much . Now I remember one demonstration where
they were trying to recruit a participant and there was one white
faculty member . I can ' t think of his name . I was about the on l y
Black faculty member who would participate actively and the others
were one or two whites that we had .
ANDREW MANIS , Just for a point of clarification , what was the
11
white/black ratio on the faculty?
DR. MACPHERSON : We didn ' t have at that time too many whites on our
faculty . I would say it was about 95% Black.
ANDREW MANIS : So you were pretty much exceptional among the
faculty members in terms of being involved?
DR. MACPHERSON: In that respect yes.
ANDREW MANIS : Now how was Dr. Pitts different?
DR. MACPHERSON: Dr. Pitts, when he came , he was totally involved
and he encouraged participation of the students and the faculty .
Now , Dr. Pitts, when we did have interracial meetings , Dr. Pitts
was one of the initiators of those meetings . I just remember that
years later some of the first of those meetings I believe they were
held at what is now the Episcopal Church of the Advent. And there
were just a few whites. And when you met with them at that time
you couldn't even let it be known publicly that we had a few whites
and a few Blacks who were meeting . But I remember about three of
the whites in those initial meetings . Not some who came later .
There was a man who had an office supply business in Birmingham
named James Head . There was Emil Hess who was associated with
Parisians . There was a man from Sears Roebuck -- D. Roebuck . I
remember very vividly they were in on the initial meetings with Dr.
Pitts . Now Dr . Pitts encouraged the students . When he came I
guess he heard and he knew that I had been involved. And so he
asked me to kind of serve as an advisor to work with him.
Dukes was the student leader at the time.
ANDREW MANIS : He was older than the average student?
12
Frank
DR. MACPHERSON : He was and I was the faculty advisor then. So we
were encouraged and we got our students involved in the
demonstrations and things.
ANDREW MANIS : Can you sort of narrate some of the things that the
students did? The most obvious one would be the one in 1962 -- the
selective buying. As student activities began, maybe you can just
sort of give me an overview of the highlights of student activities
in Birmingham .
DR. MACPHERSON: There was a selective buying campaign in which we
were printing leaflets on the mimeograph machine at Miles College
encouraging the Blacks -- they would say things like "why spend
$250 . 00 on clothing and you can ' t spend 25 cents on a hot dog at
the lunch counter in this store. " We would go at night church to
church and particularly on Saturday nights when they would have
church the next morning . And those churches that were open, we
would go inside and leave those leaflets on the pews trying to make
sure and at that time we were mindful of the fact that any activity
like that was illegal. It was against the law to boycott a
business so this is how it was done. Some of our students -- there
was a group of them who went down where the City jail on the
Southside is and demonstrated . Some of that group were arrested.
They were involved. But the most obvious thing about that
selective buying campaign which actually kind of softened
Birmingham up was the time Dr. King came here in 1963. It was
about ripe. It was about ready then . Those merchants were about
to capitulate then because of the effectiveness of that selective
13
buying campaign .
ANDREW MANIS: Before I ask you to tell me some tale abou t that
campaign as best you can, can you first describe for me what role
Shuttlesworth had in the activities of the students?
DR . MACPHERSON : Shuttlesworth was the leader. He was the leader.
Maybe he wasn I t the director. But we a ll recognized he was the
general .
soldi ers .
He had to have some foot soldiers . And we were foot
We had to back , we have to give s upport and we had to
aid but Shuttlesworth was the type of leader that would inspire
courage , confidence and we looked at him as having charisma . He
was just that type . He inspired us and brought the whole segment
of gamut of Blacks together. Now there was a number of Blacks who
were not involved. There were just you might say a dedicated few
that was actually involved and I guess that is always the case .
But the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth formed that organization and he
had a hard core of avid supporters who met every week, who paid
money and who would do those things that needed to be done -­l
adies who would transport the students and things . Lots of people
who were not known . We had some professional women in downtown
Birmingham, women who had the time and the other thing and the
other thing, there were people who could not be fired from jobs .
A number of people did not participate even though they wanted to
participate but there was fear of economic reprisal. Now I can
think of two ladies immediately -- Mrs . Deenie Drew and Mrs.
Montgomery, Dr. James T. Montgomery's wife . Now they were two
ladies in the community who worked directly with the students in
14
all of our effor ts to provide transportation and that sort of
thing .
ANDREW MANIS : You mentioned h i s leadership and his inspir at i onal
qualiti es as far as the students were concerned . Did he meet
regular ly with Frank Dukes and yourse l f or others to help and give
input in the planning of whatever activities the students were
doing?
DR . MACPHERSON : For the most part , what the students were doing
was somewhat divorced . We were operating at Miles College . But at
the same time everything that we did they were made aware of it so
that we would stay within and not go outside of what they would
approve of?
ANDREW MANIS: Were there times that you can recall that students
made plans that were more or less nixed by Shuttlesworth?
DR. MACPHERSON : No . As their advisor, number one , I suppose I
knew their thinki ng and strategy of Reverend Shuttlesworth and the
leaders more so than the students because I was going to the
meetings every week on Monday night and I would know when they were
going beyond . I knew about that so there was nothing that was ever
n i xed.
ANDREW MAN I S : Did they ever -- I mean students being students , did
they eve r feel that , it ' s hard to imagine thi s , but that you or
Shuttlesworth were going too slow?
DR . MACPHERSON: No , because Shuttlesworth was the type of man I
don ' t think that anyone would ever say that Fred Shuttlesworth was
going too slow .
15
ANDREW MANIS: That's why I said ..
DR . MACPHERSON: Actually they would say the opposite . Moving too
fast . Reverend Shuttlesworth , unlike some of the other leaders who
might work on Sunday , he believed in putting all of his irons in
the fire and he did just that . Now I realize that Birmingham was
just a hard nut to crack. It was a difficult . Now I r ealize in
other places where the Blacks had gone into Federal court , for
instance , to desegregate the parks and things . They got decisions
ahead of Birmingham but Birmingham was just a different situation .
It was not because we had , Shuttlesworth had filed those suits and
things . But when we would file those suits in Federal court we
just had j udges here who were just sitting on them as long as they
coul d. I remember Judge Seybourne Lynn , I believe he was one
outstanding . If you got a case i n his court , he almost had to be
made to hear it and render a decision . But Reverend Shuttl esworth ,
no, he didn't move too slow .
ANDREW MANIS : Did you ever hold an office with the Alabama
Christian Movement?
DR . MACPHERSON : No I never did hold an office.
ANDREW MANIS: Other than your sitting on the bus , were there other
protest activities that you involved yourself with?
DR . MACPHERSON : I believe that was it -- the bus and the personnel
board test. I was in one demonstration and this was the one that
was held Good Friday of 1963. That was the one I remember very
vividly when we were down at the church -- not Sixteenth Street but
it was about a block from Sixteenth Street and Dr. King had been
16
on the telephone with Robert Kennedy when John Kennedy was
president at that time and they had to assess whether or not we
would march. The church was filled to capacity and Andrew Young
he was , I never will forget , he was presiding to help keep the
group in order and also lead the singing until the decision was
made. Finally around noon , Dr . King came in and the march was on .
I think that was the time when Robert Kennedy and President Kennedy
were trying to get them not to march. That was called Good Friday .
I have a picture of that march. That ' s alive. I think it was taken
that was a picture from the Chicago Sun Times when we were
arrested in that march. That was the same march that night in
which Dr . King wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail. "
ANDREW MANIS: Right . Now you were in this march?
DR . MACPHERSON : Yeah . I was in that march.
ANDREW MANIS : Okay . Well , let me ask you as someone who was on
the scene , in my research I have gotten mixed indications about
whether or not Reverend Shuttlesworth was in this march . He is not
pictured here. You see Abernathy and you see Dr. King. However,
in other narrative accounts of that same march, I have seen
Reverend Shuttlesworth listed as one of the participants and yet I
do not see him in the photographs . Do you know?
DR . MACPHERSON: I just don ' t recall how Reverend Shuttlesworth was
involved. He was not there . But he organized that march . I 'm
sure of that.
ANDREW MANIS: Well , let me ask you to sort of -- well, I was about
to ask you to narrate sort of your life from day to day through the
17
five weeks of this big demonstration . I will do that in a moment .
Because you came and went during those years , sometimes i t is not
clear when you were in Birmingham and when you were not. Were you
in Birmingham during the Freedom Riders?
DR . MACPHERSON : Do you recall what year that was?
ANDREW MANIS : Yes , that was May 1961 on Mother ' s Day , the 14th to
be exact . Two busses , one in Anniston , was burned and the other
bus brought riders to Bi rmingham and they were beaten at the bus
station .
DR . MACPHERSON : I th i nk that year I was in Bloomington , Indiana.
I spent one year at Indiana University and that was the year .
ANDREW MANIS: What was the atmosphere like in 1962 during that
rather lengthy selective buying campaign? Maybe you could just
tell me what stands out in your mind about that year .
DR. MACPHERSON,
it was . Fear.
On the part of Blacks, fear . Fear . This is what
And war . Things had gotten to the point that it
was just , you might say , all out for war between the races?
ANDREW MANIS , Let me back up and ask you , as someone who was
active in Alabama Christian Movement, what was the feeling of the
rank and f ile members of the organization , followers of
Shuttlesworth in August of 1961 when he moved from Bethel to
Revelation Baptist Church in Cincinnati?
DR. MACPHERSON : They hated to see him go . They hated to see him
go . The rank and file . They were the ones who believed strongly.
They were the ones who adored. They were the ones who just loved
the man . Because he could articulate the innermost feelings of the
18
rank and file , people who you might say didn't have the education
to fight for themselves , but he could express. And he actually
did. His courage is what stood out most in a time when people were
fearful.
fearful.
And a lots of your ministers , preachers , they were
Lots of your Blacks. And your whites wouldn ' t take a
stand for right either. But your Blacks were fearful . There were
some churches where the Alabama Christian Movement couldn ' t even
meet. The congregations and the ministers wouldn ' t allow the
Movement to come there because they were fearful of bombings and
that sort of thing. So it was charge for them at that time. And
I will say one word and that is fear.
ANDREW MANIS : Did you ever have any opportunities to encounter
Reverend J . L. Ware?
DR . MACPHERSON: Reverend Ware, let me see now, was he the pastor -
- that name is very familiar. Yeah , wasn ' t he the.
ANDREW MANIS : Trinity Baptist Church .
DR. MACPHERSON : Yeah, right . He was the president of the
Ministers' Conference, Birmingham Ministers ' Conference . Sure .
ANDREW MANIS: What can you tell me about him? What do you recall
about him?
DR . MACPHERSON : Well, the thing that stands out in my mind , he was
not one of those leaders who used his position kind of in the
forefront of this struggle . His position may have been one of you
might say moderation. Go slow . He was not one of those ministers
who worked actively with the Alabama Christian Movement for Human
Rights.
19
ANDREW MANIS: Was he older than Shuttlesworth?
DR. MACPHERSON : I don ' t think he was significantly older, no . He
was not that old.
ANDREW MANIS : You don ' t know anything else about his background?
DR . MACPHERSON: No , I don ' t. But I remember him very well . You
might describe him as a neat dresser , speaker . We might describe
him as kind of a cultured individual.
ANDREW MANIS : Was he well educated as you recall?
DR . MACPHERSON : No , I don ' t think so. Not well educated . I don't
think he went to any schools of higher learning.
ANDREW MANIS: As someone who i s well educated , how would you
classify the kind of education that Reverend Shuttlesworth has?
DR. MACPHERSON : I know Reverend Shuttlesworth finished Alabama
State Un i versity . But you must recognize the struggle that we were
in was not one that called so much for education as it called for
a man who had courage to speak and to do what is right and the
courage to challenge the powers that be.
had that.
Reverend Shuttlesworth
ANDREW MANIS : Well , I 'm sure you can see what I am getting at
here . I 'm wondering whether a lack of polish , lack of a degree
from Morehouse , Crozer , and Boston University and the rather blunt,
maybe even country preacher style of Reverend Shuttlesworth ,
contributed in some ways to some upper middle class Blacks not
liking Shuttlesworth or not participating in his Movement . Do you
think that was a real issue?
DR. MACPHERSON: No , it was not. Now , there were a number of those
20
who didn ' t accept Reverend King . Just because Reverend King had
degrees from Morehouse, Crozer and Boston University, these Blacks
still didn ' t accept him during this time . I 'm looking at things
that existed in the late fifties and sixties . Lots of them now
will acclaim that they were acquainted and were involved in the
Civil Rights Movement but they were not . Just like they didn ' t
accept Shuttlesworth a number of the so- called upper class Blacks
had the same attitude toward Dr . King . They didn ' t want any part
of Dr . King. They didn ' t want any part of Reverend Shuttlesworth,
for the same reason . Dr . King's degree didn ' t make him any more
appealing to certain people . Now there were churches that Dr. King
couldn ' t go to . There were churches where he couldn ' t speak .
There were many ministers who didn ' t support his Movement. It was
just a hard core few . Now it was that few that Reverend
Shuttlesworth had galvanized and welded together so that when Dr .
King just had the stature when he was invited to come into
Birmingham but Shuttlesworth had the organization that was the
vehicle by which he could do his work and lead those demonstrations
in 1963 . Had he not been able to deliver , and it is my
understanding that Reverend Shuttlesworth told Dr . King when they
were about to , when even Dr . King wanted to capitulate and agree to
some things that Reverend Shuttlesworth was not satisfied with ,
Reverend Shutt l esworth told him "Is that all you can get for me and
my people here in Birmingham? Is that all? " And Reverend King
would l ook and see Reverend Shuttlesworth coming and those who
would know would say "Here comes the greatest ! " That's what Dr .
21
King would say about him . Because he knew of Reverend
Shuttlesworth's courage . No . They didn ' t accept Dr . King.
ANDREW MANIS: There are some persons who were in Birmingham -- I 'm
thinking of Reverend Herbert Oliver who I talked with some months
ago . He more or less interprets it as such that if Dr . King was
able to garner support from these people in ways that Shuttlesworth
was not and that both of them obviously were essential to the
success of the Movement but that Shuttlesworth alone would never - -
Reverend Oliver's current interpretati on is that Reverend
Shuttlesworth alone would never have been able to get a fuller
measure of support from the Black middle class in Birmingham
without SCLC and Dr . King coming in .
DR . MACPHERSON , Well , I 'm not sure . That would be debateable.
And then I 'm not sure that the Black middle class even made a
contribution to Dr. King as such. No , I would say for the most
part was the little folks. The folks that were on the economic
level and in terms of their educational levels I would say the
middle class in Birmingham just evolved after the Civil Rights era.
But I remember during that time that people like they might say
otherwi se now and I remember one Black dentist we had here, Dr .
Welch I believe it was , who was actively i nvolved. We had a school
principal, Mrs . Lucinda B. Robey , who was involved and there was a
number of folks who supported but it was behind the scenes. You
have to look at the fact that the time that Dr. King had attained
some national acclaim as a result of Montgomery . People will have
a tendency to just follow a person , if they believe that the news
22
reporters, that they believe that the T.V. announcers are going to
be with that person and talk more with people in the limelight .
Now a number of your Blacks didn ' t accept Dr . King until you might
say he got the national acclaim . But as far as he is an unknown
media and coming up and supporting him, the Black middle class,
they never would have just because it was Dr. King and he had a
Ph.D . It was not until he had become national figure. Reverend
Shuttlesworth still would have done his job . See, because that was
the job that you might say "you didn't need the middle class ."
What we needed were some foot soldiers . Reverend Shuttlesworth
didn ' t need any Ph.D . ' s to advise him. But he needed some foot
soldiers to ride the busses and those people, those women who would
go and cook and provide for the demonstrators . That ' s what we
needed . If Dr. King hadn ' t , Reverend Shuttlesworth would have
proceeded . Dr . King just had that national stature. He was over
in Albany and then Reverend Shuttlesworth invited him to come in to
Birmingham . That ' s really , you might say was a killing thing for
Birmingham . But even if he hadn ' t come , it would have gone on.
ANDREW MANIS : But would it have been as successful?
DR. MACPHERSON: I think so, yes. Because the City had been
softened up by the selective buying campaign . Those businesses in
downtown Birmingham were ready to urge for a change. And Dr . King
came and just started leading . That ' s when school children started
going to jail . That was all that happened then . But if that other
work hadn ' t been done , like the selective buying effort , and
Reverend Shuttlesworth had that Movement galvanized , knit and
23
ready , then its doubtful that Dr. King would have been successful
and just come in here and have 3 , 000 to go to the jails .
ANDREW MANIS: Yes , well I think its fair to say that he woul dn ' t
have come at all . Dr . MacPherson , the Birmingham World , which was
edited by Emory L . Jackson, published some editorials just about
the time the 1963 demonstrations were getting underway , maybe they
were about a week old . But there was an editorial that Jackson
wrote that more or less railed criticisms of Shuttlesworth to a
lesser degree than King . Did that make much of a splash?
DR . MACPHERSON : No , and I ' d be surprised , Emory L. Jackson was a
great freedom fighter you might say . I would never have
interpreted his editorials as being either a veil of criticism of
either Shuttlesworth or Dr . King . Now the criticisms that were ,
were from the local dai l y newspapers , The Birmingham News and The
Birmingham Post- Herald . Now I remember very vividly, I think it
was The Birmingham Post- Herald had one writer, John Tucker Graves,
he especially -- that ' s where they constantl y criticized . But I
wouldn ' t think , now I 'm familiar wi th , I used to deliver The
Birmingham World . One reason that compelled me to deliver that
paper was because it had a message to the Black man . I felt that
when I delivered that paper twice a week that I was helping people
look at that message . And that message was "Register to vote . A
voteless people is a hopeless people . II That was the message . But
I never saw anything where I thought Jackson was critical. He
always encouraged . There may have been but even so , it was nothing
significant .
24
ANDREW MANIS: As we get into the narration of the 1963
demonstrations, tell me about your own involvement in the
demonstrations in 1963 .
DR . MACPHERSON: That was the only one , that Good Friday, March
1963. During the daytime I was teaching at Miles College and we
would go to the meetings at night and that was about it -- the
meetings and things, you know.
ANDREW MANI S : What was the atmosphere? Being a teacher, I I ve
walked into classes and overheard what students were talking about .
What were you overhearing in the halls of Miles College from April
3 to May 10, 1963?
DR. MACPHERSON: In 1963 everybody was maybe thinking that I was
something like a freak , crazy , stupid?
ANDREW MANIS : How do you know that?
DR. MACPHERSON : Going down to the demonstration, your life was on
the line at the time. You might get killed . Even when I took the
test for police patrolman I didn ' t realize until years later that
white men would ride up and down the street where I live and they
would ask some of the Blacks "where did Jonathan MacPherson live?"
I didn ' t know about that until years later. My mother told me
about it . Those same people would just look at you and wouldn ' t
say anything . That ' s the same way I looked at college. Some of
your coworkers would look at you as if you were something strange
for what you have done in demonstrations and things .
ANDREW MANIS : What about the students at Miles during that spring?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well , we had a few students who got involved but
25
the majority of the students were just like t he majority of the
Black population. They were afraid.
ANDREW MAN I S : Were the comments they made negative?
DR. MACPHERSON : No, I never did come across hearing negative
comments . I never did from the students . But one good thing about
it that helped the student body as a whol e was that we had a
president who encouraged this sort of thing . Gradually we got more
faculty involved so we got more students involved .
ANDREW MANIS: What sort of concrete actions did Dr . Pitts do to
encourage the demonstrations in general and specifically the ones
in 1963?
DR. MACPHERSON :
involved . Now
He kind of left that up to me . Get the students
one of the things specifically I remember him
telling me "wherever you go , always try to have some young lady
involved with you. " So we got at least one female student for
everything we did . We made sure we would have one . Dr . Pitts was
trying to communicate with the community, having the business
leaders communicate with them and at the same time we were down
there involved in the demonstration of students.
ANDREW MANIS : Were you ever privy to his thinking o r his thoughts
about his meetings with white business leaders? Di d he ever talk
to you about what was taking place in those meetings?
DR. MACPHERSON : No , I was involved in two or three of those
i n i tial meetings and after that I went off to school .
ANDREW MAN I S : What do you recall about the meeti ngs you did
participate in?
26
DR. MACPHERSON: I just can ' t recall other than some of the faces,
you know and that we discussed things like the desegregation of the
public lunch counters .
ANDREW MANIS : Does anything stand out about what they said?
DR. MACPHERSON: The only thing at one of the meetings that stands
out is when one of your white leaders tried to playa tactic that
I thought that whites have always tried to play and that is divide
the Blacks . We went to this meeting . Frank Dukes was there . I
was there . Dr . Pitts was there and maybe one or two students and
then white leaders were there . This particular white leader
singled out Frank Dukes for singular praise and that sort of thing .
I got the impression that it was a play to try to divide our group .
That ' s the way it came across to me at that time . That ' s about
all . Other than that I don't remember . I remember we had the
things we would like to see . Seems like it was about a thirteen
point program that we wanted -- desegregation of the lunch counter ,
hiring of the Blacks and that sort of thing . wanted the white
business leaders to help work on .
ANDREW MANIS: What was your experience in this march on Good
Friday? Can you walk through that with me?
DR . MACPHERSON: Yes , well , we got to the church I guess it was
about 9 : 00 in the morning . We started assembling for that march.
The church was packed. Dr . King , Reverend Shuttlesworth , I would
suppose , had to make the decision as to whether or not we would
march because the President John F . Kennedy and Attorney General
Robert Kennedy was trying to persuade them to call off the
27
demonstr ations. I remember Andrew Young , who was a lieutenant for
Dr . King . I remember a young lady . I think her name was Do r othy
Cotton . She was another aide to Dr . King . They would l ead the
group in singing to pass t he time . Final l y around noon the people
were anxious to march . They wanted to march and Dr . King came out .
We had received the go- ahead that we would proceed with the march .
I remember when we filed out and we were going up to Kelley Ingram
Park . I was about the thi rd or fourth person behind Dr . King . We
got up to Fifth Avenue North and 17th Str eet . We started to cross
that intersection and there was a wh i te policeman who wheeled his
motorcycle in front of Dr . King . This was right where the Federal
buildi ng is now in downtown Birmingham . He wheeled his motorcycle
in front of Dr . Ki ng and called a halt to the march . Dr . Ki ng and
other leaders , they l ooked down to pray . When they said they would
proceed with the march they started to a r rest everybody. Now I was
not in the same paddy wagon that Dr . King went to jail in , but when
we got over to the jai l that time, there were other Blacks who were
already in jai l for demonstr ating . That was my first time t o be
confined . All you could hear that n i ght was singing. They were
singing the freedom songs . You could hear the women who were
housed in another section . You could just hear them and they had
found t he code necessary of trying to find out how Dr . King was
doing .
jails .
night.
We knew how Bl acks were mistreated a t tha t time i n the
There was no bed . We s l ept on the concrete floor that
ANDREW MANIS : How many in a cell?
28
DR . MACPHERSON: I was in one of these open things . I guess about
like this room. I understand they had taken Dr. King and Abernathy
to other quarters. Mine was kind of open where I was. When I got
there , there was kind of an elderly gentleman who was active in the
Movement. I never will forget him . He was an old man but he was
very active in the Movement from week to week. His name was
Brother Meadows. I said, "Brother Meadows, what are you doing
here? " He was old and his words to me were "I 'm going all the way .
I want to see what the end is going to be like? " So there were
several of us . The next morning is when they came and got me
because someone had come and arranged my bond . Later on is when we
found out about Dr . King and that "Letter from the Birmingham
Jail . "
ANDREW MANIS: So what happened after you were released?
DR . MACPHERSON : After I was released we just went back to the
normal follow- up. That was what happened. I think Dr . King stayed
in jail
Hall .
for maybe several days. I remember going down to City
I was at the same time when we had to go to answer that
charge about marching without a permit "parading without a permit "
I think is what the charge was. Of course you could see the attire
that Dr. King had on. I remember sitting in jail where the City
Hall chambers is in Municipal Court in downtown Birmingham where
Emory Adkins?? resides is where Dr. King sat to await his hearing.
That was about 1963.
ANDREW MANIS: Do you have any outstanding recollections of seeing
Reverend Shuttlesworth or talking to Reverend Shuttlesworth during
29
those demonstrations?
DR . MACPHERSON: Yeah , most of the time Reverend Shuttlesworth had
a speaking engagement . I would introduce him. For instance, when
he comes back to the city now, quite often he invites me to
introduce him . I had gone to his house and we talked about the
issue of the Black policeman .
ANDREW MANIS: I meant during the 1963 demonstrations , say , from
day to day . Did you have many opportunities to observe him?
DR . MACPHERSON : Not on a daily basis , just weekly . At the
meetings that we would attend .
ANDREW MANIS : You were teaching during the days . You said you
went to the mass meetings which occurred every night for five weeks
or so .
DR. MACPHERSON : For a period. Yes .
ANDREW MANIS : Do any of those mass meetings stand out in your
memory?
DR . MACPHERSON: All of them were typically about the same . They
would be at a different church . We would always have ou r speaker
who was usually a preacher . The City of Birmingham would send two
detectives on the front pew to take notes and record everything
that went on. Some of those meetings, when we left they woul d have
members of the police department to flash pictures of the people
who were attending . They would be sitting in their cars . But the
police department as we left , some of them would follow and trail
us for a long ways , just anything to incite fear to the people .
ANDREW MANIS: Did you, say from 1957 on, would you say you
30
attended almost every Monday night meeting?
DR . MACPHERSON : From 1 957 and for about two years before I went
off to school . We attended almost every weekly meeting, my dad and
my mother , yes.
ANDREW MANIS , I am trying to nail down when a particular mass
meeting may have taken place and sort of fil l in the gaps of what
happened. There ' s a report in one of the -- at one of the mass
meetings , and I think it was some time in the fifties . The fi r e
marshall came and tried to evacuate the church building and
Reverend Shuttlesworth wouldn ' t allow the people to evacuate until
he had proof , or that he was convinced that this wasn ' t a trick and
that it really was an issue of fi r e safety . Were you there?
DR . MACPHERSON: I have been at meetings when that d i d happen .
That happened more than one time . Now I don ' t know whether he said
do it but I have been there when they have cleared the aisles and
everything and even tried to declare that some of the churches were
not safe for that gathering.
ANDREW MANIS: This was a particular one . I 'm sure it happened
more than once but this is a particular one where finally after
some cajoling on the part of the fire chief , Reverend Shuttlesworth
gave in and everybody got up and moved to another church .
DR . MACPHERSON : I don ' t remember that one . That may have been the
time I was not here .
ANDREW MANIS : The reason I asked about that is because of the
comment that Reverend Shuttlesworth supposedly made in this context
when they came in looking for fire , his comment was "the kind of
31
fire we have in here you can't put out with hose or ashes." I 'm
wondering if that was kind of a standard line that he used .
DR . MACPHERSON: (Laughs.) Well , I don ' t know but that sounds just
like him.
ANDREW MANIS: Do you think there have been -- I 'm certain that
you ' ve read some if not all of the biographies of Dr . King and,
naturally when a biographer is focusing on King, particularly with
what ultimately happened to him and the mythic quality that he has
taken on since his death , that Shuttlesworth always sort of suffers
by comparison in that setting, but the discussion on the part of
some biographers or writers is that Shuttlesworth was of unstable
personality, he was dictatorial, that he was petulant, that he was
jealous of King, that he was hard to work with, that he couldn ' t
work with people -- John Porter was even quoted as saying something
along that line in one of the biographies . How does that depiction
of Fred Shuttlesworth set with you?
DR. MACPHERSON : I would say "none of that would be true nor is a
picture of Fred Shuttlesworth ." Fred Shuttlesworth was not
dictatorial, he was not impressive and petulant . The mind was most
reasonable and sane. You had to be during the times and given the
conditions that existed then, well , you may have been dictatorial
but you couldn ' t say that this was the kind of dictatorial -­necessity
-- it was out of necessity . He was just doing the thing
that no one else would do . He had to do it . Even John T. Porter -
- John Porter was not involved a great deal in those struggles.
John Porter pastors a church and the Alabama Christian Movement was
32
not even permitted to meet in the church that he started pastoring.
And I don ' t think it met there much even after he started pastoring
that church. But those people who know Reverend Shuttlesworth and
I don ' t think Reverend Porter has that intimate knowledge during
these times that may have been applied after because you've got a
number of Blacks who came on the scene after the battle and the
fight was over . I'm trying to look at things during that
particular time and not in terms as Birmingham and the world exists
now and then look at it back in 1957 and in the sixties but I am
trying to look at it as it existed during that particular time. I
would say "no , he was not. " Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, had he
done that sort of thing, how do you think a man could galvanize
enough people , given the racial climate as it existed, to fill , but
yet he was able to galvanize enough people to meet every week and
would provide the meager financial resources and would provide the
manpower to do what was done. He couldn't have done that if he had
been petulant, a dictator , and all of those other things that some
want you to believe. No .
ANDREW MANIS: In the years after 1963 where Fred was still
attempting , at least up until 1966 and 1967 , to lead the Movement
in Birmingham after 1963 when police brutality and the hiring of
police came back to the forefront as the issues -- and also a
period in which Reverend Joseph Lowery was here, was there any kind
of -- the things I've read, which were reports of detectives, and
sometimes Black informants , that there seems to have been some
rivalry between Shuttlesworth and Lowery during those mid- sixty
33
years .
DR . MACPHERSON : No , I don't think so . Now there are some
individuals from certain quarters who might want it to appear that
there was rivalry but I ' ve never got the i mpression that t here was
any rivalry. Birmingham and everyone who was familiar with the
Civil Rights Movement , they would just say that Birmingham is Fred
Shuttlesworth ' s town. Everybody knows here that if they got any
sense or any knowledge at all of history they know that Fred
Shuttlesworth was the man who broke the ground in Birmingham, not
Joseph Lowery who is head of the SCLC . It would not have been
necessary for there to have been a rivalry between the two .
ANDREW MANIS : Why was there -- I mean up until -- I don't know
when there came to be a Birmingham Branch of SCLC . I 'm not sure
when that happened . But there wasn ' t one i n 1 963 because you had
the Alabama Christi an Movement and which was THE organization . It
seems t o me the ve r y fact that there was at some later point duri ng
the mid- sixties the beginnings of a Birmingham -- I 'm not sure the
world "branch " i s a correct term, but affiliate of SCLC might
indicate some institutional or organizational rivalry going on .
Maybe you can clarify that.
DR. MACPHERSON: Well , there may not have been a rivalry . I
believe it was more the fact t hat SCLC , I don ' t remember the year
that was born , but I believe a fter Fred Shuttlesworth left t he
Alabama Christian Movement t ook on new leadership and I be lieve the
SCLC was born because a few people who had been active i n the
Alabama Christian Movement were not quite satisfied with the
34
leadership other than Fred Shuttlesworth was providing for the
Alabama Christian Movement . I think they felt it was not actually
addressing problems in Bi rmingham as aggressively as Fred
Shuttl esworth would have . I believe that gave more to the birth of
SCLC than anything else .
ANDREW MANIS : By that you mean the birth of SCLC in Birmingham?
DR . MACPHERSON: Yeah , in Birmingham .
ANDREW MANIS : Was there a probl em in Shuttlesworth's maintaining
his efforts in Birmingham in the mid- sixties after he had already
been living in Cincinnati? Did that ever cause a problem? I know
white folks would say "We l l he doesn't live in Birmingham, why is
he sti ll bothering wi th us? "
DR . MACPHERSON : I don ' t think so . After he l eft it was turned
over to Reverend Edward Gardner . If they ever needed the leadership
of Reverend Shuttlesworth they would just call Cincinnati and ask
him to come down, not only the Christian Movement but SCLC also ,
which he has been down several times to support efforts here .
ANDREW MAN I S : what do you make of the gradual change in Bi r mingham
and its attitude toward Fred Shuttlesworth? In some ways I 'm sure
it stayed the same , but there has been , when David Vann was mayor ,
there was a Fred Shuttlesworth Day . And then more recently
Huntsvil le Road was renamed Shuttlesworth Drive . what do you make
of those developments over the years?
DR . MACPHERSON: Well, I think it was an appropriate honor for the
man for what he had done to bring this city , not had it benefitted
Blacks but it benefitted whites also . We come, after we look back ,
35
we come to realize that now that what he has done for not just
Blacks but whites also . It liberates the thinking of whites as
well as Blacks and their accomplishments . This is our way of
saying thank you to Fred Shuttlesworth who went to jail and
beatings and all the persecutions this man suffered. His house was
bombed, his church was bombed , his life threatened , he was beaten
with chains at Phillips Hi gh School . When we look back the man who
had to go through that sort of thing just to get signs off of the
bus, I guess it would be fitting to do something for him .
ANDREW MANIS: Do you think whi tes in Birmingham are any more
likely to celebrate Fred Shuttlesworth than they were thirty years
ago .
DR . MACPHERSON : We l l , they would be more likely today than thirty
years ago . There would be much more likelihood now than thirty
years ago . Thirty years ago people would just say "No. " But there
so many of the whites that are not as familiar with his work, his
accomplishments . The elderl y ones might look at it from the
viewpoint "Oh , that ' s the man when Bull Connor was the Police
Commissioner ." "That ' s the man , we ' ve heard his name so many times
and saw him on T.V., Fred Shuttlesworth , the troublemaker . " That's
how they would feel.
ANDREW MANIS: Is there an anecdote or a story or an encounter that
you had with Shuttlesworth, a story about h i m that you know of that
you haven't told me about that you think I should know about?
DR . MACPHERSON : Let me think. I remember one meeting that we had
-- kind of a strategy meeting. Reverend Shuttlesworth and A. G.
36
Gaston. They found different -- two directions at that meeting .
They almost -- their differences were getting out of hand. There
was a Black dentist, Dr. Wilkes , who was at this meeting also . I
think Dr. Gaston was one who wanted to urge caution and waiting.
Fred Shuttlesworth wanted to move ahead . I think Dr. Pitts was the
one who kind of came between them and got their thinking together.
But I never will forget how Mr. Gaston referred to Reverend
Shuttlesworth . He kind of pronounced his name as Shutt I ' worth .
Kind of' like that "Shuttl ' worth ." But despite the fact of what
they say now, what they give to Dr. Gaston , Dr . Gaston was not one
of those who was pushing Civil Rights . He was providing facilities
and was urging caution . But Fred Shuttlesworth was a man that you
just couldn ' t urge that caution . Some people would say "wait until
it calms down ." Fred Shuttlesworth would just say we must proceed
with what we have to do . But I think on many occasions , sometimes
he would come back to preach revivals . Or Dr. King would come,
when he didn ' t stay at the motel , he would stay at Seventh Street
at the home of the Drews . John J . Drew and Mr. Dukes and myself ,
we have stayed around that house a l l night to guard wherever he
lived. Reverend Shuttl esworth ' s mother still lives in Birmi ngham.
You know that. At Oxmoor .
ANDREW MANIS : You must have had opportunities to talk with Dr .
Pitts quite a bit . What was his opinion of Reverend Shuttlesworth?
Did they get along?
DR . MACPHERSON: Oh yeah .
ANDREW MANIS : Were there ever times when Dr . Pitts thought that
37
Shuttlesworth was moving too fast?
DR . MACPHERSON: No , no . Dr . Pitts would just take the attitude
that his job was president of the college and his as Civil Rights
leader and what I as the presidents and what the students can do to
support Shuttlesworth -- getting out there and being on the line .
Yes .
ANDREW MANIS : How did Dr . Pitts solve the dilemma you mentioned
earlier? You can ' t "beg a man and fight a man " at the same time?
DR . MACPHERSON: He just didn't worry about it . Seemingly hi s
attitude is that our freedom , and it was taken on at that time , our
freedom comes first . This is what we want , irrespective of
anything that it is freedom day before yesterday . That was his
attitude . I don ' t care if they do hold up my (cannot understand).
That was his attitude and he had other strategy .
northerners to give support to the institution .
ANDREW MANIS: Well, I appreciate your time .
He appealed to
DR . MACPHERSON : I 'm certainly glad to know that the book will be
done on Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth because he is so brilliant and
he has been a great leader. I just happen to be glad for any
recognition or honor that would come to him because it is long
overdue for him . I think , as you said, so much has been focused on
Dr. King and perhaps others , but this was a man who , in my
estimation , didn ' t have the polish , didn ' t have t he eloquence of
Dr . King but he was just as great and the job that he did was just
as significant.
38